Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 425 Winter is Coming
"Eternal Heaven! Are you really going to abandon your people?"

In the small Guihua City, Bu Shitu was worried.

In the past few days, Lin Danhan's offensive has become more and more fierce. Both the attackers and defenders of Guihua City have suffered heavy losses. Bu Shitu is beginning to feel overwhelmed.

Although the weather had turned cold, the real winter had not yet arrived, which made Bu Shitu extremely anxious. Lin Danhan had already made a move to attack Guihua City, which put a lot of pressure on Bu Shitu. If Guihua City was breached, everything would be over.

On the fourth day of the battle, Bu Shitu, who had not slept all night, cheered up and led his army to the city wall again to prepare for the upcoming fierce battle. He didn't know how long Guihua City could be defended. If he continued to fight like this, the city would be broken and he would die. At this moment, Bu Shitu regretted it a little. If he had known this earlier, he would have fled far away and given Guihua City to Lin Danhan. Although he lost Tumed, he could at least save himself.

In the current situation, he has no other choice but to continue to hold on to Guihua and hope that there will be heavy snow in Eternal Heaven soon. As soon as it snows, the severe cold will come, and then Lindan Khan will no longer be able to continue attacking the city like this, and his own crisis will be resolved.

But could Changshengtian really hear his plea? Bu Shitu himself was not sure about this.

The fighting on the fourth day was still fierce. Lin Danhan also knew that if he failed to take Guihua City, he would not be able to stay in Tumed. This battle was a decisive battle to determine who was the real master of Tumed, and neither of them could afford to lose.

In the afternoon, Lin Danhan launched two consecutive attacks, but both were beaten back by Bu Shitu. There were countless corpses on the city walls and under the city walls. Although Guihua City was shaky, it was still impossible to break through, which made Lin Danhan annoyed and angry.

Just when Lindan Khan was preparing to launch the third attack, one of his subordinates suddenly came to report that a large group of cavalry appeared south of Guihua City. These cavalrymen came from nowhere and directly killed dozens of Lindan Khan's periphery cavalry and were heading towards Guihua City.

Hearing this report, Lin Danhan was shocked and asked about the number and size of the troops. When he learned that the enemy might have more than 10,000 people, Lin Danhan's brows were furrowed and he was speechless for a while.

"Could it be that old guy Bu Shitu has reinforcements?" Lin Danhan thought of this possibility at the first moment, and then he thought of the previous destruction of the southern army.

Until now, Lin Danhan still couldn't really determine who annihilated the Southern Army. Although he had received a lot of information from various sources, some said that the Southern Army was destroyed by Bu Shitu, some said it was done by Kalaqin, some said it was done by Yongshebu, and some even said it was done by Tenger.

Lindan Khan could not confirm whether the news was true or false, but no matter what, the destruction of the southern army brought great losses to Lindan Khan. This was also the main reason why Lindan Khan had not been able to quickly capture Bushitu and was still fighting with the enemy in Guihua City today.

If the Southern Army was there, Bu Shitu would have been defeated long ago, and the war would not have dragged on to this point.

Now Guihua City is right in front of him. His main force has surrounded Guihua. The old man Bu Shitu is trapped in a jar. As long as he breaks Guihua City, everything will be over. The entire Tumed will fall into his hands, and he, Lin Dan Khan, will also achieve his goal of moving westward.

But at this time, a cavalry unit of this size suddenly appeared in the south, which made Bu Shitu nervous. If his guess was correct, his southern army was most likely annihilated by the enemy. Moreover, given the size and combat effectiveness of the southern army, if the enemy wanted to annihilate it easily, the enemy's military strength would probably be far more than 10,000 cavalry, or even more.

It was impossible to ignore it. Once Lin Danhan continued to draw the main force to attack Guihua City, and the cavalry from the south came hard from behind, his losses would be heavy. Lin Danhan had fought for many years and of course understood this truth. He had to ensure the safety of his main force and absolutely could not give the other side a chance to take advantage.

Thinking of this, Lin Danhan immediately ordered the left wing troops to move south, and the right wing troops to be on guard against Bu Shitu's detachment nearby. He also pulled out a part of his central army and placed it on the south side to cover the main force and ensure that they would not be ambushed by the enemy during the siege.

Although this made things much safer, it also reduced the intensity of Ligdan Khan's attack on Guihua City.

During the battle that afternoon, Bu Shitu in Guihua City clearly felt that Lin Danhan's offensive was not as fierce as before, and it was much easier for his side to deal with it than before. When the battle ended after dark, Bu Shitu came down from the top of the city wall panting to rest. He couldn't help but feel a little strange. Guihua City was obviously crumbling, but why did Lin Danhan weaken his offensive? This was not in line with common sense!

But no matter what, this is not a bad thing for Bu Shitu. On the contrary, he prays that tomorrow's battle will be the same. As long as Lin Danhan does not continue to increase the pressure on himself, there will not be too many problems in maintaining naturalization. As time goes by, Bu Shitu will be the advantageous party.

Under Zhu Shenzui's bluffing and constant harassment, Lin Danhan was unable to concentrate his forces to capture Guihua City.

Time passed quickly and it was mid-October. When the first snow fell, Guihua City was instantly in a frenzy. Bu Shitu was in tears and extremely excited. He felt that this was the attachment of Changshengtian, and he had finally waited for the arrival of winter.

Outside Guihua City, Lin Danhan looked ashen, looking up at the gray sky and the falling snow, his heart sinking to the bottom. As a Mongolian, he certainly knew the cruelty of the grassland winter. If it was on a normal day, it would be fine, but now was the most critical moment of the war. At this time, if he could not break through Guihua City and defeat Bushitu as soon as possible, then Lin Danhan's headquarters would face a great crisis.

At this time, Lin Danhan had two choices. One was to abandon Guihua City and continue westward, directly passing through Tumed to Qinghai, find a foothold in Qinghai, and then find an opportunity to return to Tumed.

The other option is to continue the siege, break through Guihua City before the weather gets completely cold, kill Bushitu, and thus take control of Tumed.

Both choices are extremely difficult, leaving Lindanhan at a loss as to what to choose for a moment. After some hesitation, Lindanhan still decided to try to continue attacking. Perhaps with a little more effort he could break through the naturalization process. If successful, everything would be settled.

Unfortunately, with the arrival of heavy snow, the morale of Lin Danhan's headquarters dropped sharply, and everyone knew that they were in big trouble. Moreover, the attack and defense of Guihua City had been going on for many days, and it had not been taken before. How easy would it be to break it now?

At the gate of Guihua City, the troubled Lin Danhan organized several more attacks. It was not until the evening of the second day that he was sure that there was no possibility of breaking through Guihua. Now Bu Shitu in the city was in high spirits. With the power in his hands and the lack of effective siege equipment, it was impossible to achieve this goal.

In desperation, Lin Danhan could only listen to the advice of his subordinates and prepare to retreat westward.

His target is Qinghai. Now that the weather has just turned cold, if he moves quickly he can seize the time to cross the Tumote Grassland and run to Qinghai. Once he gets there, it will not be a problem to conquer the tribes in Qinghai with the military force in his hands. Then he will have a place to stay.

In this way, Lindan Khan's army quickly ended the battle against Guihua City. When the next morning came, Bu Shitu in Guihua City suddenly found that the army outside the city had disappeared. No one knew when Lindan Khan left. The army that had covered the sky and the sun disappeared overnight. Except for some sundries that Lindan Khan had not had time to clean up in his camp outside the city, and all the siege equipment that was thrown in a mess, all the people were gone.

Seeing this scene, Bu Shitu was ecstatic. Finally, Lindan Khan withdrew his troops. As for where they withdrew to, it was not known yet. But no matter what, with Lindan Khan's withdrawal, he finally defended Guihua and Tumed.

Although Lindan Khan withdrew his troops, Bu Shitu still did not dare to be careless, for fear that Lindan Khan would set a trap for him by making a feint.

He did not leave the city and continued to stay in Guihua City. He only sent people outside the city to contact his detachment and let the troops outside the city determine the whereabouts of Ligdan Khan.

A few days later, news came that when it was confirmed that Ligdan Khan had indeed retreated westwards and headed towards Qinghai, Bu Shitu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Lin Dan Khan did not dare to stay in Tumed for long because of the weather. If his army and herdsmen could not reach the destination soon, they would suffer serious losses. For this reason, Lin Dan Khan marched very fast, and he plundered and attacked small and medium-sized tribes along the way, killing all the resistance and plundering their people, cattle, sheep and other supplies to make up for the losses caused by his previous war.

Relying on this method, it took nearly half a month for Lindan Khan to finally reach Qinghai. After arriving in Qinghai, he conquered the local tribes without hesitation, obtained the land and supplies to survive the winter, and thus temporarily stopped in Qinghai.

In the days to come, Lindan Khan would first have to survive this winter. When the spring comes next year, Lindan Khan will send troops to conquer the entire Qinghai, and then rebuild the Mongolian headquarters in Qinghai. After accumulating strength and recovering vitality, Lindan Khan will turn around and settle accounts with Bu Shitu.

As Lindan Khan headed west, Zhu Shenzui achieved his goal. His army soon left Guihua City and headed south, embarking on the journey back to the tribe.

After returning to the tribe, Tana, who had not seen Zhu Shenzui for a long time, threw herself into his arms and hugged her husband tightly. Although Tana did not say anything, Zhu Shenzui could feel her concern for him and her incomparable joy.

With the coming of the cold winter, the Tumote grassland has returned to its former tranquility after the war. Lin Danhan went west, and Bu Shitu defended Guihua. Both sides licked their wounds and took the opportunity of winter to recover their vitality.

It was a different story in the Tenger tribe. Although the Tenger tribe suffered losses in this battle, they gained a lot compared to the results of the battle. Especially after annihilating the southern army of Lin Danhan, Zhu Shencui directly obtained a large number of cattle, sheep and supplies from the enemy. These supplies greatly supplemented Zhu Shencui and also made the tribe profitable.

In addition, in several battles, both the new army and the cavalry were greatly trained, which further improved the combat effectiveness of the Tenger tribe. More importantly, with the destruction of Lin Danhan's southern army and the result of forcing Lin Danhan to go west, the confidence of the entire Tenger tribe was doubled. Everyone saw the hope of the Tenger tribe's rise, and saw everything Zhu Shenzhu had done for the tribe, which also made his prestige even greater.

(End of this chapter)